Council veteran Kenyon worries about Kalispell's growing pains

Kalispell's rapid growth worries Randy Kenyon, an 8-year city council veteran seeking a third term.

"It's about time to draw a line in the sand and take a breath and sit back and analyze how far we want to go," Kenyon said.

Kenyon expects Kalispell's government to do some pivotal soul-searching where to draw that line when the River's Bend project goes before the city's planning board.

River's Bend is 160 acres northeast of Kalispell, south of Rose Crossing and west of U.S. 2. Initial plans call for the project to have 652 homes and a 120-assisted living complex.

Right now, Kalispell has two "islands" of incorporated land surrounded by rural Flathead County. Kalispell hopes to eventually stretch out to connect with those islands.

One is the Old School Station industrial park two miles south of the main town, and the other is several hundred acres of proposed housing stretching south from Church Drive along U.S. 93. Kalispell's government hopes to hook up with the north island when it annexes the Glacier Town Center mall-and-housing project on the north side of West Reserve Drive.

Meanwhile, two rural housing projects north of East Reserve Drive and east of U.S. 2 have agreed to not fight annexation whenever the city's borders reach them in return for getting access to Kalispell's water and sewer systems. That creates an island-in-waiting.

The River's Bend project is adjacent to those sites. If it seeks annexation, that would create a third Kalispell island with the potential to grow significantly bigger.

"That'll be the one to bring [the growth and island debates] to the forefront," Kenyon said.

Kenyon sees Kalispell's population and geography growing faster than the city's services can keep up.

He thinks that the council needs to shift its philosophies to become a little more in line with Council Member Bob Hafferman, who routinely calls for in-depth financial analyses of major annexations and other big projects.

The city needs to explore better ways of raising revenue and financing its expansion, he said.

Kenyon speculated that local governments could approach the Montana Legislature to allow the state's biggest cities - including Kalispell - to levy resort taxes like Whitefish and other smaller towns are allowed to do.

Another major issue facing Kalispell's council is that most house prices are greater than what half of the Flathead's workers can afford to pay.

Kenyon thinks the city government should explore community land trusts as an affordable housing measure. In a community land trust, a nonprofit organization owns land while families buy the houses on it - factoring rising land costs out of the purchase price.

He also thinks the city should look into setting a specific upper price limit to meet the definition of "affordable housing." Then the city should explore requiring developers to set aside a percentage of their new homes to meet that affordable housing definition, he said.